Welcome back to another episode of the Reseller's
Mindset Podcast. My name is Mike, also known
as the Used Book Guy on YouTube, along with my
friend and fellow full -time reseller, Johnny
B. We help people start and grow their reselling
businesses from the ground up. We also have a
weekly Zoom call and private Discord for all
YouTube members. Head on over to youtube .com
backslash usebookguy to join the channel and
gain access to the full -length podcast, Zoom
call, and private Discord today. Let's get into
this week's episode. What is up, everybody? Welcome
to another episode of Reseller's Mindset Podcast.
Mike next to Johnny. Today is an important one
because... Theoretically, in the land of Amazon,
November was the worst month ever to be an Amazon
book, CD, and DVD seller. And I don't want to
harp on it being the worst because I went and
actually broke down my actual dollars per hour
that I made. And I think 95 % of resellers, especially
Amazon sellers, have no idea how much they make
per hour. And I realized quickly that if this
is the worst month ever, I'm going to be A -OK,
right? So what I did is I went in, I pulled...
My Amazon has a report you can pull monthly.
It has all of your fees, all of your profits.
And I realized I was making over $50 an hour,
Johnny, right? No one's going to pay me that
much. Like, look at me. I'm pathetic. No one's
going to pay me more than, CVS paid me $22 an
hour and I gave like half of my life to them,
okay? So like, I think that the idea that this
is the worst of the worst, but people that are
saying this don't really understand like. How
much money are you actually making per hour doing
this? And can you go find a job that's going
to pay you $50 an hour? The answer for me is
no. I don't even know a job in Pennsylvania.
Not without skilled training or you've been promoted
through the corporate chain after a while. Yeah,
man. A lot of it's just BS from people. That's
just the truth. A lot of people that think this
is the end of times, it's BS because I have plenty
of one -on -ones with people. that are super
successful. They're not in the Facebook groups.
They're not even on our calls. They literally
pay to be a part of my group. And probably 75
% of the people I have one -on -ones with never
show up to any calls. They're just out there
getting the job done, blocking everything else
out. And that's why they're successful. Right.
And I found in multitude of groups, it's usually
the quiet ones. The ones, like you said, not
attending calls or very rarely attending calls
that just got their heads hunkered down in their
own business. And that's all they're focusing
on because everything else is just noise and
distraction. Honestly, I mean, they consume information.
Don't get me wrong, but they are really just
laser focused on compounding on what's working
and dropping what's not. And that's that's the
other thing. A lot of people will string a not
working business along forever. And they don't
make any adjustments. Even with this buy box
change, you have adjustments you can make. You
can decide to go merchant fulfilled if you want.
I don't think this is the best choice, but it
is a choice. You can double down on your inventory
and send in more to compensate with a slower
sell -through rate, but you got more volume going
in. You can increase your ASP where things that
when they do sell make more margin. You can switch
over to doing new. or you can do additional categories
that aren't having issues. I mean, there are
categories that are just not really affected.
Or you can swing into something else in reselling.
You honestly could. Or try to reinvent another
revenue stream. That's what I was going for.
There are options, but the people who just complain
and they see their numbers going down aren't
making any adjustments. Oh, there's another adjustment.
Cut expenses. What are you overspending on? I
know a couple of people, they kind of looked
at their books like, okay, what can I cut? Am
I spending too much in shipping? Do I got too
much employee overhead? This, that, and the other.
They're going over their line items. What are
my monthly expenses and what needs to be cut
or dropped? I think the one thing, for the five
years I've been creating YouTube content about
selling media on Amazon, I told everybody, Johnny,
Just condition everything is good. It didn't
matter up until literally November of 2025. So
am I stubborn enough to sit here and say, I'm
just going to keep doing good? Well, if Amazon
wants me to do higher, better conditions, and
that's going to get me more money, more sales
and get me in the buy box more. Guess what? The
used good book guy is dead immediately, right?
We took him out back. We got rid of that guy
because he no longer is relevant. And if he stayed
around. You'd probably be bankrupt. You've got
to make changes and pivot, especially when it's
like there's big flashing lights in front of
your eyes, and it's saying, do this, and you
will be – there's a higher chance you'll be rewarded
with a sale. Do this. Do this. We have a daily.
We have a weekly, and we have a monthly barometer,
and it's called how much of our stuff is selling
and how much am I making off those sales. It
literally shows us on a daily basis what's going
on. Now, you can't really make any – snap decision
call off one day or two days of bad sales you
need to look at what you're doing over the course
of the day week and month and year and compare
it to your previous year's stuff like what's
going on you need to be able to interpret the
sales trend and when an adjustment needs to be
made so when we have these cliff falls that you
can usually see it coming like there's usually
a trend but sometimes amazon pulls the rug out
from one of us and like oh okay End of times.
Ah, what do I need to do? Yeah, I was down 20
% in November, but fun fact, I looked at my year
over year number, right? So like the used book
guy back in 2024 in November, like he sucked
because I was, that guy, that Mike was operating
basically without the buy box because my numbers
were over last year's numbers. So the worst of
times this year, the worst of times ever, I was
still making more. Then Mike from last year in
November, because maybe Mike from last year wasn't
going out as much. Maybe he wasn't sending as
much. Maybe he wasn't putting in enough effort.
And that's another thing that kind of woke me
up like, OK, well, like everybody's usually up.
But I think the problem is I had somebody had
a one on one with October was their best month.
Right. So what is worse? then following up your
best month is your worst month. So you look and
Amazon smacks you in the face every time you
open up the app and it says percentage down over
last 30 days, right? So like I told that person
like, it's okay. You just had your greatest month
ever, right? This happened. Of course, it's going
to be defeating when you look and you see you're
down 50 % over last month. Well, that was just
your best month ever. And what this person actually
did is exactly what I tell everybody here to
do on this podcast. They went, they looked and
said, all right, let me find out how much I'm
making per hour. All of a sudden, they were like,
hey, all right, you're right. This is really
nowhere near as bad as it looks on paper because
I'm still making X amount of dollars per hour,
which is better than any paying job you can get.
What's up, Amazon sellers? We wanted to take
a second to talk about GoToLister, the software
me and Johnny both use to list and manage our
inventory and grow our businesses. With the fastest
listing speeds out there and built -in profit
analytics, it's a no -brainer. Easily and quickly
have items available for sale using 2D barcodes
and get more for your items with its built -in
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Mike or using the link in the description below.
okay and here's a outside of reselling example
like my homeowner's assurance just doubled literally
doubled went from like one thousand something
to two thousand something so i got two choices
i well three i could stop paying for insurance
not going to do that uh two i can take it like
okay fine i will just pay them an extra thousand
three i can shop around or get an insurance broker
to shop around for me and look for it guess what
option i chose number three and you know what
i got it to about exactly what i was paying for
the same coverage just by making that one effort
and not just taking it or not just not playing
the game of insurance that's what's required
in everything we do when they make an adjustment
we need to make an adjustment there's always
a play to be made you just got to figure out
what the hell it is um And the key word I did
say in here is effort. It requires you to put
in the effort. Yeah, quitting is the easiest
way, I think. It is. I can stop paying for insurance,
but you know what? Tornado Alley just takes once,
man, and gone. Yeah, I think that's the problem
with it. It's always more fun and it's always
it's always more dramatic when people harp on
that. It is this is the worst month ever. I mean,
we talked about it before the call. We've seen
people both in your groups and in my groups that
have no longer are doing this business model
because of this. And I don't blame people for
doing that. I blame people for doing that when
they don't sit down and actually look at their
numbers and they go decide. back to get a job
and a job pays them 17, 18 bucks an hour. But
in reality, even though their numbers were down
reselling eBay, Amazon, don't care where you
resell them, you're still making way more per
hour than if you just go work that job. Well,
the people that are working that job, they may
be more making, honestly, making more money working
that job because they were never running their
business successfully. Now, the people that were
making above and beyond the 17, 18 dollars decide
to roll out and get themselves a regular job.
I'm not sure they've made the right call other
than it was an easy call to make pulling out
because running a business, that's not easy.
You got to put in a lot of effort every single
day. Working a job, you can kind of just float
around and move an object two inches, move the
object back two inches. It looks like you're
working and you still get paid for it, right?
So it is easier to do that. Yeah, I think too,
some of it depends where you're at in the world.
Some places are a lot more expensive, but I do
think, I'll throw my number out there first.
I won't put you on the spot today. I'll let you
kind of piggyback off my number. I think the
standard minimum wage in resale, the number that
everybody should at least make resale, and I
don't care what platform, what business, what
category, is at least $20 an hour. I want to
go higher than that because I know the possibilities.
I knew you were going to go higher. But as a
baseline. I think that is okay, even though you
probably should step it up a bit, but I got to
factor in the hobbyist and I got to factor in
the part -timers here. So I think 20 an hour
for the amount of hours you're able to put in
reasonably is okay. We'll go with that. Yeah,
but I mean, think about that, dude. Like the
minimum wage here in Pennsylvania is $7 .25.
It's the same here, $7 .25. Your standard job
here is going to pay you, if you're lucky, like
15 bucks an hour. So like, even if you are the
worst reseller, you should still be making at
least $20 an hour, which is basically triple
the standard minimum wage. My Mickey D's starts
at 11. My grocery store starts at 13. If you
want factory life, you're starting about 19 an
hour, but you're working factory life and that's
hard, hard work. It all comes back to... you
know what johnny said you got to know you got
to know your stuff you got to know your numbers
um used to be i mean i was the same way when
i first started selling ebay dude like i'd sell
something i get 50 bucks i'm like i made 50 i
had no idea what the hell i was doing i'm just
slinging things up stuff is selling life is good
i got money to buy dominoes right like i think
at that point i'm just like it's just fun money
to me and but you got to get to the point where
It's a business. Back then, it wasn't. And for
most people that are super part -time or hobbyists,
I really don't blame them for being super analytical
and understanding all these things. They just
want extra money for when they go to the casino
or whatever. But for those of us that are like,
hey, this is a business. I want to grow this
business to a certain point. I want to make thousands
of dollars a month. If you want to make thousands
of dollars a month, you have to treat it like
a business. If you want hundreds of dollars,
sure, fly by the seat of your pants, sell things.
buy as much dominoes with your dominoes money
as you want. But once you get over that hump
of, all right, I'm making some hundreds of dollars
a month, I'm going to start making thousands.
I think that's when the switch has to flip and
you have to start really treating it like an
actual brick and mortar, any type of, you know,
retail type business. Now, here's some more perspective
in numbers. The mail clerks, I talk to them quite
a bit because I see them pretty much every day,
except on Sundays because it's closed. And they
make about $20 an hour plus benefits. the postmaster
there he makes between 96 to 108 depending on
how many years he's been there right the only
thing they got up on any reseller is they got
benefits included but any reseller needs to be
able once their business is stabilized they can
decide to go forward or not make more than the
postmaster at the united states postal service
they really are capable of doing that on an annual
basis that 108 is not take home mining just like
your 108 and reselling is not take home but and
they got benefits you don't got benefits unless
you're paying out of pocket so i think that is
probably what i would consider the baseline once
you figure out what you're doing and once you've
been doing it for a minute whether you want to
go above and beyond that and i think you should
that's up to you But as a bare minimum, that's
what I would do. I've got a crazy theory just
came to my mind because you're on the topic of
benefits. I think there's going to be a crisis
in 15 to 40 years of a bunch of resellers who
have to resell when they're 110 years old because
they put no money away. when it comes to benefits.
So like you think about it, when I worked at
CVS, they match 5 % into your retirement. I put
in 5%, they put in another 5%. I truly believe
98 % of resellers have no plans when it comes
to their own benefits, right? Like we're not
getting a SEP IRA because we don't even know
what it is. We don't know that it can reduce
our taxable income as self -employed people.
So we just keep... chugging along we get money
we spend money we get money we spend money and
then at the end of the road we got nothing like
johnny said benefits is a huge deal i tell people
all the time you want to quit reselling i had
a one -on -one yesterday i had a bunch of one
-on -one just say this is another thing that
brought up guy wants to quit his job uh he get
he's got benefits he's got a family right so
you got to take this and you can i'll tell you
right now the marketplace for health care Good
luck, Chuck, especially if you got a family.
Just for me alone, catastrophic if I lose a leg
while I'm out. You're talking multiple hundreds
of dollars a month for catastrophic coverage.
That's just for me. This isn't for a family.
You're talking upwards of $1 ,000 if you have
a family, kids, wife, significant other you got
to have on your insurance. But if you account
for it, it's okay. It's the people that don't
account for these types of things. And they're
just like, hey, I'm just going to keep flying
by the seat of my pants and I'm going to quit
my job. And it's different for everybody because
he asked me, hey, you know, you think I can quit
my job? I said, yeah, you can quit your job.
But it's you got to have a pile of money set
aside. You got to have all your ducks in a row.
And the benefits is one of the big things. You
shop it around before you wind up quitting. So
you know exactly what you're getting yourself
into. And I always tell everybody, you've been
working at the job for however many years. ride
it out another six months pile away as much money
as you can that's how it was at cvs deb told
me to quit three years before i did i was just
like well it's money and i can still you know
go to work and i can do ebay listings while i'm
at work so why not do it and but the day i quit
there was no fear of like i'm gonna go bankrupt
this month right like I was like, hey, this is
good. I walked out them damn doors with the biggest
cheeser on my face. Like I just won the lottery.
But I see the risk and I understand it. And that's
why you calculate for it and you plan for it.
And then the risk really kind of goes away. Yeah,
I mean, let's just say you fell and chipped your
tooth, right? That's going to cost money. I just
looked it up. Even if you had insurance, you
get one heart attack. You got the best insurance.
You're probably paying $25 ,000 out of pocket.
You have the worst insurance. You're looking
at $200 ,000 for the worst insurance. I mean,
it depends on what kind of heart attack, length
of stay, and all that crap. But that's still
a fair chunk of change. And your $17 a job without
benefits, you're kind of screwed. Unless you
want to be paying hospital bills until the day
you die. Yeah, I think that's another thing,
right? These jobs don't give you no type of damn
raises. These cost of living raises like year
over year, 2 % to 4%. Good luck, Chuck. That's
all I can say. I mean, how can you ever get ahead
just chugging along at a job year over year where
you're only getting a 5 % raise on the high end?
CVS is usually 2 % to 3 % every single year,
which we know basically inflation is 3 % or whatever
the hell the stupid number is. You literally
are gaining no ground, and you're going to work.
five days a week. And if you put that effort,
I say it all the time, being an entrepreneur
in America is the best way to get ahead financially
and change your life. But it's going to take
work and it's going to take a lot of effort.
It's going to take figuring out what you enjoy
doing. But yet again, you can give yourself a
raise almost monthly if you want to decide to
go put in more work or start selling a different
product or start doing something different in
your business. I mean, absolutely. I mean, like
my coffee, it went up three times this year.
I'm not even talking about milk and eggs, which
we all hear in the news cycle. Just my simple
coffee I drink has gone up three X. I went from
$10 a bag to like. almost 25 a bag it was ridiculous
but i still pay it because it's my coffee and
i ain't switching my brand i'm just not so i
gotta suck it up and maybe i maybe i send in
one extra box i do a couple extra listings to
make up for my coffee habit it's uh it's like
when i sell something right like i'll sell uh
let's see here what do i got max and ruby dvd
right i make like 10 bucks and then like i go
buy something at the store I'm like, ooh, Max
and Ruby paid for this $10 bill. It's so weird
as a reseller when you really start looking at
things. The things we trade for money, it's not
even like I get money. It's like I almost live
in this barter world system where, yes, it's
dollars and cents, but I just look at, well,
what did I have to sell to fill up the tank of
gas for $50? I'm like, oh, yeah, I sold this
dumb DVD for $75, and that literally filled up
my gas tank today. The game may change, and you
have to change along with said game, and it's
all up to you. You have complete control of how
your business grows or shrinks or evolves over
time. That's what makes you a business owner.
It's not like you're an employee for Amazon.
I think a lot of people treat it as their employee.
Amazon is your business partner. You're working
with them. Or if you're on eBay, eBay is your
business partner or whatnot or Etsy or the bajillion
other places you can sell your goods and wares.
You've got to decide. Sometimes maybe your business
partner isn't the right one and switch it up.
Like if you're an eBay seller, listen to this.
Maybe Amazon is going to pay you better. They're
a better business partner for you. Maybe the
thing you're selling on Amazon, they're going
to give you better benefits if you switch categories.
If you're the cassette Amazon seller, you're
probably going to make a little bit more money
if you switch over to CDs. But you've got to
evaluate these things, and like Mike said, make
the best decision for you and find something
that you enjoy. If you don't enjoy CDs, there's
a bajillion other things you can sell. Find something
that's tolerable to you. If you treat them as
just widget money -making machines, it shouldn't
matter, and switching should be easy. Oh, like
to piggyback off of that, when I when I made
the decision that we had when everybody has to
start changing their conditions. Right. I think
what happens here is when people make big changes
in their business, they think what they were
doing was like wrong. It wasn't wrong. When I
when I was conditioned, everything is good. There
was no effect. Whether you went up into very
good or like new. It had no effect on you winning
the buy box. So when I make the decision, do
I look back at myself and say, hey, Mike, you're
an idiot for doing that for the past five years?
The answer is no, because it was okay back then.
And like Johnny said, you got to be willing to
make changes. I'm all about making money. If
something I've been doing since I started, which
is literally good condition, everything needs
to change. That shit's changed immediately. Like
I'm not losing no sleep. I'm like, hey, this
is what they want from me. I'm on board. Let's
do it. And sure, everything I've said for the
past five years and every video where I told
everybody only do good condition. I was right
back then when I was saying it. Times have changed.
And if you don't change with the times, then
you guess what? You're not going to be around
much longer. It doesn't really matter the scenario.
Somebody is always making money in the best of
times and the worst of times. You just got to
figure out how to be that individual who makes
it in both times. And if you can find that, you've
pretty much won the game. I think Max said something
similar on his podcast, but it is very much true.
Whenever there's a war, somebody's always profitable.
Whenever it's peacetime, somebody's always profitable.
It's just a matter of figuring it out and then
bringing it back down to smaller scope in Amazon
land. You've got to figure Amazon out and what's
best for you and Amazon together if you decide
to maintain business partner relationships with
Amazon. Where's the opportunity to be had when
the buy box is what it is? There are plenty of
options. You can just send in more volume to
increase sales. You can raise your ASP. I mentioned
this earlier. You can switch over to new. You
can find a different category where the buy box
isn't being screwed around with, quote unquote.
I got a crazy idea for people. How about we lower
our ASP but increase our sell -through rate?
There's another option, yeah. When the writing's
on the wall, you can't ignore it, right? Like
if somebody comes to you, say you're working
a job, and they say, hey, Johnny, you suck at
this. Here is a warning that if you keep doing
this, we're going to have to let you go. Like
a performance review kind of thing? That's what
I'm saying. It's the same exact idea. with these
platforms when they make changes, right? eBay
just did the big promoter listing. Oh, it's a
scam, yada, yada, yada. Well, when I list something
on eBay, I'm still promoting my stuff. You promote
your stuff, right? Yeah. I'm not going to change
just because of the update. It's just like, well,
damn. Exactly, right? Like, if you don't like
it, you can take your ball and go somewhere else.
We have to deal with these changes when they
come. And if they say this is what we expect,
no matter how idiotic it is that if some random
person clicks on the listing from Guatemala and
then somebody in Australia buys it, you get charged
a fee or whatever stupid shit these platforms
want to do, you don't. This is it. This is what
we sign up for. We are literally third -party
selling partners to them. They can change the
rules as they want. Your only option is figure
it out, pay the extra promoted percentage, or
factor it into your business, or go somewhere
else. And guess what? Most people that go down
in platforms, your sales goes down. What a crazy
thing. Sure, maybe Pango Books has zero fees.
Zero fees, Johnny. Well, you can have zero fees
when you ain't selling nothing. Who gives a shit
what the fees are? It's an audience of 10 consumers.
Thank you, Pango. They're never going to sponsor
us now. I'm sorry, Mike. But yeah, it's true.
And if you look back a few years, in eBay land,
we used to make all kinds of money off shipping.
And then eBay is like, we want a piece of that,
seller. It's fine. Amazon does the same thing.
There are fees in place today that weren't around
three years ago. We always got to pay the piper
or move on. And unfortunately, I see a lot of
people just moving on. Now, if you're moving
on because that's part of your business plan,
always has been, that's a whole different story.
Like maybe you're using your reselling money
to open up some other business that you've always
planned on doing. And Amazon's just a temporary
stop for you to generate that cash that you need
to go off and do that thing you've had in your
mind since you were six years old. That's perfectly
well. But for the people who are just moving
on because they think the sky is falling and
boulders are coming out. No, it makes me sad.
It makes me sad. It makes me sad when people
just move on just because they think it's the
end of times. Yeah, it's terrible. I know. I'm
just sitting here like, hey, it's all right.
Let's relax. I do think I think one contributing
factor is it's reselling to be successful at
scale. You need to have relationships. It is
hard to have a multi six figure reselling business.
where you just go to the thrift stores only and
you don't have a relationship with a warehouse
or the libraries or the the clothing rag house
or whatever you know somebody that's getting
all this stuff in bulk and offloading it to you
and i think the majority of resellers rely solely
on the thrift stores and that's why That's another
contributing factor of why they hang it up before
they even really see what it's worth. Because
no shit, the thrift store prices have been going
up since I started in 2019. I remember when books
used to be 49 cents at the Goodwill. Them days
are long gone. $3 minimum across the board. Some
of them are $5 minimum across the board. Like
you got to get with the times. If not, eventually
you're going to go out of business. Might not
be today, might not be 2026, 2027, but it's going
to catch up to you. Absolutely. I mean, relationship
is probably outside of you starting your business
and getting it up and running. Relationships
is one of the most critical factors in your career
going forward. I don't care if it's a library.
I don't care if it's an estate sale company or
pawn shop or even a bookstore. You've got to
get those relationships. If you just pay, quote
unquote. retail or thrift store retail it's gonna
hurt you it's doable but you're hurting your
own margins unnecessarily it's not like that's
out of your control that is again that is in
your control but it does require effort on you
you're in if you're not the person who can't
who struggles talking with people there are other
means there are email campaigns there's no verbal
cold emails own it that works too But it takes
that effort. I'm going to wrap this up here with,
if November was the worst month of your resale
and career, I challenge you to go back, look
at actually how much you made, how many hours
you spent. I even factored in my buy cost for
every item I sold, my software costs and Amazon
land, which is a couple hundred dollars every
single damn month. And I still wound up over
$50 an hour. So I challenge you, if you're down
in the dumps and you think this is the end and
November was the worst. You go run your numbers.
Let me know in the comment section if you do
actually run your numbers, because I'm curious
and I guarantee it's going to be a lot more than
everybody thinks it's going to be. And you will
be put at ease and say, hey, all right, let's
just start building it back. We'll talk to you
all in next week's episode. Thanks for listening
to another episode of the Reseller's Mindset
Podcast. Today's full episode and all previous
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